BY JEFFREY LEWIS AND AMY WOLFE
Special to the Journal
Collin Kartchner was a passionate advocate for protecting children from online dangers. Before he died tragically in 2020 at the age of 40, Kartchner had founded an organization called Save the Kids. He traveled around the country to educate people about the mental health challenges and other risks that social media has created for millions of children and teenagers.
Even before his death, Kartchner’s fierce dedication as a social media advocate for children inspired Legacy Health Endowment to act. In 2019, we launched “What You Should Know About Social Media: A Parent’s Guide.” Since then, four reprints have been circulated to parents in California’s Central Valley through schools and other outlets.
This comprehensive guide was developed to educate parents on the apps that their kids are most likely using, the potential risks that these apps carry, and offer tips to protect children’s mental health.
In a rare bipartisan effort this summer, the U.S. Senate took up Kartchner’s cause and passed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). The two bills represent the most aggressive congressional action taken in recent memory, specifically focused on protecting our kids from online dangers.
At their core, the two pieces of legislation would require social media companies to institute greater protections for users under 17. They would also focus on advertising and create a mechanism for kids and their parents or guardians to delete their information from online platforms.
While the Republican-led House of Representatives appears unwilling to consider the Senate-passed legislation, we celebrate the Senate’s historic bipartisan efforts.
Today, our children face a host of dangers directly related to social media and overexposure to being online:
· The FBI estimates that approximately 500,000 sexual predators are active on the Internet on any given day.
· 1 in 5 kids have received unwanted solicitations online.
· 37% of kids ages 12-17 say they have been cyberbullied.
Last spring, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, formally called attention to the issues our kids face online.
“We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis – one that we must urgently address,” he said, noting that current data is clear regarding how our children’s mental health is impacted by their time online.
· 1 in 6 youth ages 6-17 in the U.S. experience a mental health disorder every year.
· 64% of adolescents are “often” or “sometimes” exposed to hate-based content online.
· 33% of girls ages 11-15 say they feel “addicted” to certain social media platforms, and more than 50% of teenagers report that it would be hard to give up social media.
These numbers paint a clear picture. Our children are impacted daily by their online engagement, and often, it is not positive. Their mental health is suffering, and we, as adults, can and must do more for them. It stands to reason that these two pieces of legislation would help us move in a better direction.
Will they reverse these trends completely? Certainly not. That requires active engagement by parents, grandparents, families, and communities to help our kids better understand their online risks. It means setting boundaries and limits for how much time our kids spend online when they can access social media and what their online presence looks like.
To help parents and families create those expectations and better understand these risks, we encourage everyone to view the current versions of the “Parental Guides to Social Media and Gaming.” These tools lay out these dangers in more detail and offer practical solutions for protecting your kids. You can find the guides at https://www.legacyhealthendowment.org/parental-guides.
As parents, we know how scary today’s social media-crazed and online-centric life is for our children. We can’t wait for Congress to do what’s right. Instead, we need to focus our energy on what we do in our homes and communities to ensure our children’s online safety.
— Jeffrey Lewis is the President and CEO of Legacy Health Endowment, and Amy Wolfe is the Special Projects Coordinator. Their words expressed are their own.
